“It” is the filthy lucre of publishing royalties.
Well, I exaggerate: Here’s yet another example of a professor bucking the publishing system and getting materials out there, for free. Noel Capon, a professor of marketing at Columbia Business School, is releasing “Managing Marketing in the 21st Century” Radiohead-style: students (or I suppose, anyone) pay what they feel like. That could — and probably is, in most cases — nothing. Nonetheless, Prof. Capon feels that the benefits of getting his work out there beats the hassle of dealing with unresponsive publishers.
“After all these bad experiences, I decided to publish it myself… The leading book in my field is north of $150. It’s just out of sight. It’s become this major social issue now.”